Morning Workshop Sessions (9:30-11:00am)
Jessica’s Comics Memoir Workshop with Jessica Santillan: This workshop will explore writing and illustrating memoir in comics form. Students will examine examples of memoir in comics, from which they will craft and share original scenes.
Monsters, Heroes, and Reversals -- Adopting Personas with Susan Varnot: In this workshop, we’ll take a look at some ancient and modern myths and engage our capacities to adopt different points of views and perspectives to turn historically unempathetic portraits of monsters and villains into sympathetic characters. In reverse, we could examine heroes or heroines and present them as unsympathetic characters. We will compose original work that challenges stereotypes and our ability to re-imagine perspectives uniquely.
Word to Song and Back Again with Paul Gibbons and Federico Llach: Songwriting is nurtured and perfected through practice. And nurture and practice, we will. We will connect inherent rhythms of spoken word with the emotional resonance of melodies, and we will practice taking a melody’s emotional underpinnings back to words. Although helpful, no instrument or singing experience needed.
"In a Flash" with Liz Scheid-Blau: This workshop will study the art of stray moments, and how to transform these moments into flash fiction pieces. Through various writing prompts and examples, we'll discover ways to find the profound within the silent spaces. Ultimately, we'll trim our stories down to the bare essentials.
2019 Collaboratorium Session: The Memoir Essay 2 part session with Brigitte Bowers (9:30-1:00 with break 11:00-11:30): Memoir essays tell stories about one small facet of our lives. They provide a snapshot into a time or an event. They require the courage necessary for candid self-revelation. And if told vividly and honestly, this most personal of genres transcends the writer’s experience, providing readers a glimpse into an unfamiliar reality and, ultimately, broadening our understanding of what it means to be human.
This workshop is founded on the principle that every life contains a memoir essay worth writing, and thus the first part of the workshop will focus on helping participants find their stories. Writers will respond to a variety of timed prompts intended to generate ideas for a memoir essay, and then they will be given time and guidance to create, share, and receive feedback on their essays.
The goal of the workshop is for students to leave with one rough draft of a memoir essay and at least a few ideas for other essays they might write in the future.
Please come prepared with the following:
- At least three photos taken during your childhood. The photos may be in digital or print formats.
- Three small objects, preferably from your childhood, that are important to you for any reason.
- One small object given to you by a family member.
